Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) has been a major cause in untreatable vision loss and blindness. AMD is a disease of the photoreceptor system in the eye, including undesirable changes to the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). The RPE is a monolayer of pigmented epithelial cells directly beneath the photoreceptors of the neural retina. It rests on Bruch's membrane (BrM), a 5-layered extracellular matrix, which functions as both the substrate for RPE attachment and as a vessel wall at the inner aspect of the choroidal vasculature that nourishes RPE and photoreceptors. Changes in the RPE are considered to be central to the initiation and progression of AMD, which is a major cause of vision loss in the elderly in the industrialized countries today. The RPE has an innate autofluorescence; the normal pattern of this fluorescence is altered in AMD in characteristic ways. For example, drusen, which are extracellular deposits between the basal lamina of the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and the inner collagenous layer of Bruch's membrane (BrM), are believed to be one of the hallmark early signs of AMD. To date, the only treatment for early AMD with drusen is antioxidant supplementation for just a subset of early AMD patients.
Therefore, there is a need for a device that provides for imaging and quantifying the autofluorescence of the eye, particularly for the identification of drusen and its components in the RPE, to identify the biologic and/or molecular basis and to diagnose patients suffering from AMD.